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SSL Certificates

Free SSL on every plan, upgrades when you need them

Every site we host gets a free, auto-renewing SSL certificate — with paid OV and EV options ready the day you want to prove exactly who you are.

$0

Free SSL on every plan

Auto

Issued and renewed

256-bit

Encryption strength

$1.5M

EV warranty cover

Why It Matters

Encryption, trust and the padlock — sorted

An SSL certificate does more than tick a box. It protects your visitors and signals that your site is safe to use.

Padlock icon representing SSL certificate encryption and website trust

The padlock visitors trust

Browsers show a padlock on HTTPS sites. Without a valid certificate, visitors see a 'Not secure' warning instead.

Encrypted in transit

Logins, form entries and payments are scrambled between the browser and our servers, so nobody can read them on the wire.

Renews itself

Certificates reissue automatically ahead of expiry, so you never wake up to a lapsed lock or a broken checkout.

A quiet SEO signal

Search engines favour secure pages, so HTTPS gives your rankings a small head start over unencrypted rivals.

Verified identity

An EV certificate proves your business is who it claims to be, placing your vetted company name in the certificate — reassurance that matters when money changes hands.

On in minutes

Free certificates provision automatically the moment your domain points to us. There is nothing to buy or install.

Free SSL certificate securing a website

Included Free

Free SSL on every plan, no asterisks

A free SSL certificate ships with every hosting plan we sell — shared, WordPress, reseller, VPS and dedicated alike. It is provisioned automatically, covers your domain and its subdomains, and renews on its own so your padlock never lapses.

  • Automatic on every domain and subdomain
  • Issued the moment your domain resolves
  • Renewed for you before it ever expires
  • No first-year-only pricing games
Website security and DDoS protection

Premium Certificates

Step up to wildcard or EV certificates

When free SSL isn't enough, choose a paid certificate. A wildcard secures every subdomain under one cert, while EV places your verified business name inside the certificate details — the kind of reassurance that matters for stores, memberships and anyone handling sensitive data.

  • Domain-validated (DV) certificates
  • Wildcard cover for every subdomain
  • Extended Validation (EV) for maximum trust
  • Warranty cover up to $1.5 million

Buy a Certificate

Premium SSL certificates

Free SSL is included on every hosting plan. Add one of these when you need a wildcard, extended validation or a warranty-backed certificate.

DV SSL Certificate

Fast domain-validated encryption for any site

$59.99/yr

renews at the same price · issued in minutes

Validation
Domain (DV)
Issued
Usually same day
Warranty
$10,000
Secures
1 domain
  • Domain-validated encryption
  • Issued in minutes, not days
  • Padlock and HTTPS in browsers
  • $10,000 relying-party warranty
  • Trusted by every major browser
  • 256-bit encryption, 2048-bit key
  • A positive Google ranking signal
  • Unlimited reissues in the term
  • Secures www and non-www
  • Free installation help
Order SSL
Most Popular

Wildcard SSL Certificate

Secure a domain and all its subdomains

$169.99/yr

renews at the same price · covers every subdomain

Validation
Domain (DV)
Issued
Usually same day
Warranty
$10,000
Secures
*.yourdomain
  • Covers every subdomain
  • Wildcard *.yourdomain cover
  • Domain-validated, same day
  • Padlock on every subdomain
  • $10,000 relying-party warranty
  • 256-bit encryption, 2048-bit key
  • Great for many subdomains
  • Unlimited server licences
  • Unlimited reissues in the term
  • Free installation help
Order SSL

EV SSL Certificate

Maximum trust with a vetted business identity

$379.99/yr

renews at the same price · highest assurance

Validation
Extended (EV)
Issued
1–3 days
Warranty
$1,500,000
Secures
1 domain
  • Extended business validation
  • Your company name in the cert
  • Strongest trust signal there is
  • $1,500,000 warranty
  • 256-bit encryption, 2048-bit key
  • Reassures checkouts and logins
  • Trusted by every major browser
  • Unlimited reissues in the term
  • Site seal for your footer
  • Guided validation from our team
Order SSL

Certificates are issued after checkout — our team validates and installs yours for you, usually the same day for DV and within a few days for EV.

How It Works

Secure by default, with nothing to install

Automated SSL certificate installation process on a hosting server
1

Point your domain to us

Add your domain to your account and let DNS resolve to our servers — the only step you actually do.

2

We issue automatically

Your free SSL is requested and installed the moment your domain is verified. No clicks, no config files.

3

Stay secure on autopilot

Certificates renew themselves before expiry, so HTTPS and your padlock keep working without a second thought.

Included

What comes with your SSL

  • Free SSL on every plan
  • Automatic issuance and installation
  • Coverage for your domain and subdomains
  • Hands-off auto-renewal
  • Forced HTTPS redirects available
  • Modern TLS 1.3 encryption
  • DV, wildcard and EV upgrade options
  • Trusted by all major browsers
  • No hidden certificate fees
  • 24/7 human support

FAQ

SSL certificate questions

Is SSL really free on every plan?

Yes. Every hosting plan includes a free SSL certificate at no extra cost, issued and renewed automatically for as long as your site is hosted with us.

What is the difference between free SSL and a paid certificate?

Free certificates encrypt traffic and show the padlock. Paid certificates add more: a wildcard secures every subdomain under one certificate, and an EV certificate adds a vetted check of your business identity that browsers and customers recognise as a stronger trust signal.

Will my visitors see a padlock?

Once SSL is active, browsers display the padlock and load your site over HTTPS. Sites without a valid certificate now trigger a 'Not secure' warning in the address bar instead.

Do I have to renew my certificate manually?

No. Free certificates renew on their own before they expire. For paid wildcard and EV certificates we remind you ahead of the validation window so there is never a gap in coverage.

Does SSL slow my site down?

There is no noticeable impact. Modern TLS is highly optimised, and HTTPS is required for HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 — protocols that actually speed most sites up.

Can one certificate cover my subdomains?

Yes. Our free certificates cover your primary domain and its subdomains, and wildcard options are available if you run a large number of subdomains.

Lock in your visitors' trust.

Every plan ships with free, auto-renewing SSL — and premium EV or OV certificates the moment you need to prove who you are.

See Hosting Plans

The Full Picture

A green padlock is table stakes now — the harder questions are what happens to your certificate when you switch hosts, why a site can still flash 'Not secure' after SSL is installed, and which validation level actually matches the traffic you get. This page fills in that operational detail rather than repeating the basics.

Every plan we sell — web hosting from $2.42/mo, managed WordPress from $4.19/mo, VPS from $13.52/mo and dedicated servers from $149.99/mo — ships with free, auto-renewing SSL as standard, backed by 24/7 human support and a 30-day money-back guarantee if a premium certificate purchase turns out not to be the right fit.

Deep Dives

The details behind the promises

DV, OV and EV: what the validation levels actually check

A domain-validated (DV) certificate confirms one thing: that whoever requested it controls the domain. That's why free certificates issue in moments — there's no paperwork, just a DNS or file check. Organization-validated (OV) and Extended Validation (EV) certificates add a real verification step, where the certificate authority checks business registration records and confirms the company by phone before issuing anything.

That extra check is why EV certificates carry the deeper warranty — up to $1.5 million in our cover — and why they're worth the wait for stores, membership sites or anything handling sensitive customer data. DV is the right default for a blog or brochure site; OV and EV earn their keep once real transactions and real trust are on the line.

Keeping HTTPS unbroken when you migrate to us

Free managed migration doesn't stop at copying files and databases — it's timed so a fresh free SSL certificate is requested and issued the moment your domain resolves to our servers, closing the gap between the old host's certificate and ours before visitors ever notice a difference.

That matters most for stores and login-gated sites, where even a short HTTPS gap can trip browser warnings or break a checkout flow mid-migration. Coordinating the DNS cutover and the certificate issuance together is a standard part of the migration, not an extra step you have to request.

Diagnosing a stubborn 'Not secure' warning

SSL being active doesn't always mean the warning disappears. Mixed content — a page served over HTTPS that still loads an image, script or stylesheet over plain HTTP — is the usual culprit, and it often traces back to a theme, plugin or old database entry hardcoding an http:// link from before SSL was switched on.

24/7 human support can scan for those stray references and help configure a forced HTTPS redirect so every request, including old bookmarked links, is upgraded automatically rather than left to trigger the warning again on the next page load.

SSL, checkout pages and PCI-friendlier stores

Encrypting data in transit is one of the baseline requirements card processors expect under PCI DSS, and every plan's HTTPS covers that piece for checkout, login and account pages by default — no separate certificate purchase needed just to meet it.

SSL alone doesn't make a store fully PCI compliant; that also depends on how the payment processor and cart software handle card data. What our NVMe SSD and LiteSpeed stack does add is speed — checkout pages stay fast even with the extra handshake overhead HTTPS introduces, so encryption doesn't come at the cost of a slower cart.

Developer coding on a web hosting server

Installing wildcard and EV certificates without the guesswork

Ordering a premium certificate isn't a self-service form you're left to figure out. Our team generates the certificate signing request, submits it to the certificate authority, and — for EV — walks you through exactly which business documents the validation call will ask for.

Installation includes the full intermediate certificate chain, not just the leaf certificate — a detail that causes 'certificate not trusted' errors on some mobile browsers when it's missed. We confirm the chain validates cleanly across major browsers before marking the order complete.

  • CSR generated and submitted on your behalf
  • Guidance on documents needed for EV verification
  • Full intermediate certificate chain installed
  • Cross-browser validation checked before sign-off

More Reasons

Built to help you grow

Migration-safe HTTPS

Free managed migration times certificate issuance to your DNS cutover so HTTPS doesn't lapse mid-move.

Mixed-content troubleshooting

24/7 support helps track down stray HTTP images or scripts still triggering a broken padlock.

Store-ready encryption

Checkout and login pages run over HTTPS by default, covering the encrypted-transit requirement stores need.

Reseller wildcard coverage

A wildcard certificate secures every subdomain of a domain, useful for staging, shop and portal areas under one account.

Modern protocol groundwork

HTTPS unlocks HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 on our LiteSpeed stack, so security and speed improve together.

Guarantee-backed upgrades

Premium wildcard and EV certificates are covered by the same 30-day money-back guarantee as hosting.

Getting Started

How to get going

1

Pick the validation level you need

Choose DV, wildcard or EV at checkout based on how many subdomains you run and how much identity assurance your visitors expect.

2

Complete verification if required

EV certificates need a short business verification step; our team explains exactly which documents the certificate authority will ask for.

3

We install and confirm the chain

The certificate and its full intermediate chain are installed, then checked for clean validation across major browsers before we call it done.

Good To Know

What's covered

  • SSL details carried over during free managed migrations
  • Mixed-content diagnostics from 24/7 human support
  • Full intermediate certificate chain installed, not just the leaf cert
  • Wildcard coverage available for staging and subdomain areas
  • HTTPS groundwork for HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 speed gains
  • 30-day money-back guarantee on premium certificates
  • Checkout pricing shown in your local currency via geo-currency detection
  • Billed and operated by Bohzo Ltd (UK)

More FAQ

More questions, answered

What happens to my SSL certificate when I migrate to Hosting Cheap?

Our free managed migration times a fresh certificate to issue the moment your domain resolves to our servers, so there's no gap between your old host's SSL and ours. Files, databases and DNS move alongside it, coordinated so HTTPS keeps working through the cutover.

Why does my site still show 'Not secure' after installing SSL?

This is almost always mixed content — a page served over HTTPS still pulling an image, script or stylesheet over plain HTTP, often from an old hardcoded link. Our 24/7 support team can help locate the offending references and set up a forced HTTPS redirect to prevent it recurring.

Can one wildcard certificate cover multiple client sites on a reseller account?

A wildcard certificate covers every subdomain of a single domain — for example shop.yoursite.com and staging.yoursite.com — but it doesn't extend across separate client domains. Each client domain on a reseller account still needs its own certificate, though free SSL issues automatically for all of them.

Does SSL make my store PCI compliant?

SSL covers the encrypted-transit requirement that PCI DSS expects, and every plan includes it on checkout and login pages by default. Full PCI compliance also depends on how your payment processor and cart software handle card data, so SSL is a necessary piece rather than the whole picture.

What's the real difference between DV, OV and EV certificates?

DV only confirms domain control, which is why free certificates issue instantly with no paperwork. OV and EV add an actual business verification step — the certificate authority checks registration records and confirms the company by phone — which is why EV carries a deeper warranty, up to $1.5 million in our cover.

Is there a guarantee if I buy a premium certificate and change my mind?

Yes. Premium DV, wildcard and EV certificate purchases are covered by the same 30-day money-back guarantee as our hosting plans, so there's no risk in stepping up from free SSL if it turns out you didn't need the upgrade.